Can the reiterative use of exiftool degrade image quality?

Started by moscaman, November 21, 2016, 10:54:50 PM

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moscaman

This might be a silly question but I can't find this explicitly answered anywhere.

Can the repeated use of exiftool degrade the quality of JPEG images? I ask this question because I am about to use it multiple times on all of my images that I have taken since the 1990s.

I understand that it just manipulates the metadata but does using it to rename files or manipulate any aspect of the metadata involve recompressing the JPEG?
Thanks.

StarGeek

From FAQ 13:

"ExifTool does not modify the image data itself, so editing a file with ExifTool is "lossless" as far as the image is concerned."
* Did you read FAQ #3 and use the command listed there?
* Please use the Code button for exiftool code/output.
 
* Please include your OS, Exiftool version, and type of file you're processing (MP4, JPG, etc).

moscaman

Thanks StarGeek. Did not see that. I thought that this would be the case but I wanted to be 100% sure.
Appreciate the info.